


Your Eyes, Your Mouth, Your Teeth

by takenstanley



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, College AU, Dubious Consent, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Endgame Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Gay Richie Tozier, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Past Drug Use, Reddie, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Richie Tozier is oblivious, Vampire AU, Vampire Character, Vampire Richie Tozier, Vampirism, dubious consent (not Richie and Eddie though), monster au, pennywise not mentioned, there is one sentence that talks about cocaine but that's it, vampire main character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 08:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24966880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takenstanley/pseuds/takenstanley
Summary: AKA, the Vampire AU that no one asked for.Possible trigger warnings will be mentioned in the tags and explained in beginning notes of each chapter.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	Your Eyes, Your Mouth, Your Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> First, a quick little dive into this universe—in this world, monstrous conditions (so being a werewolf, vampire, zombie, etc.) exist. Those conditions are called curses, and people who have a curse are called cursed. The curse is spread through contact of bodily fluids. Cursed people are often discriminated against in more conservative areas, so most people aren’t forthcoming about their curse if they have one.
> 
> Also, I'm planning on turning this idea into a longer work, so comments and kudos are always appreciated!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explanation of Possible Trigger Warnings!!  
> \- Richie gets a curse by having sex with someone who is cursed. The dude is a vampire, though Richie didn’t know that before sleeping with him.  
> \- The dubious consent tag is because Richie asked him to use a condom and the guy said he was going to, but didn’t. Richie wasn’t sober and didn’t notice until it was too late. Richie does get upset about it at one point, but it is only mentioned in passing in the fic and no graphic descriptions are included.  
> \- There’s a single sentence that mentions Richie having a history with cocaine use, but it isn't elaborated upon in this chapter.  
> \- It is revealed that Richie also started to drink alcohol heavily to cope with his anxiety about his vampirism, but he doesn't drink at all in this chapter.

Richie wakes up to a pounding on his door, which is weird. A quick glance at his alarm clock reveals that it’s ten in the morning. Normally, he doesn’t get out of bed for another few hours, _at the least._ Also, he has a grand total of _zero_ friends in LA, and he certainly doesn’t know anyone who would risk his morning moodiness. So, there’s that.

Now that he’s blearily awake, though, Richie decides to at least get up, get a bite to eat, and hope that whoever the fuck is at his door changes their mind. He sits up in his disheveled bed and stretches, gangly joints popping. One of his pale hands goes to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He yawns until his jaw pops and impulsively feels around for his glasses until he realizes he doesn’t need them anymore. He sighs. 

By the time Richie pulls the covers off himself, the pounding has started up again. This time it’s louder—someone _really_ wants to see Richie today. 

_Shit, what if it’s my landlord,_ Richie’s tired brain thinks in a short-circuited panic. 

Richie knows he hasn’t _technically_ been late on any of his rent, even though he had cut it close a few times. Still, he hasn’t seen his landlord since what he’s dramatically started calling “the incident,” instead choosing to drop his check off in the office’s mailbox during the wee hours of the night. _What if my landlord is curse-phobic,_ his brain scrambles. _Oh my god, what if my landlord is coming to my house at 10 am to kick me out because he’s curse-phobic?_

Richie’s chest starts to feel tight. _It’s okay, you can do this,_ he promises himself. _Turn on the charm, and I’m sure you’ll be fine. Aren’t there, like, anti-prejudice laws to protect cursed people in LA? Maybe you can sue him and become a billionaire._

Richie stumbles out of bed and walks towards the front hallway of the closet that he calls home. As he nears the front door, he notices a faint, sweet smell wafting from underneath it. Even though he _knows_ that’s not what his fifty-year-old landlord smells like, the scent confuses him more than it relieves him. Wearily, he comes to a stop in front of the entryway. 

Yeah, inhaling deeper, this smell is _definitely_ not his landlord. The smell is almost familiar, and it makes him feel like he’s chugged a bottle of wine too fast. With a start, he realizes that his mouth has started to water. _Wow, you’ve ordered so much plasma fruit that you’ve Pavlov-ed yourself to your own door being knocked on. Great job, Tozier,_ Richie can’t help but snark to himself in his head. If he wasn’t this tired, he would probably laugh at himself. 

The knocking starts up one last time as Richie reaches for the door handle. With a blink he realizes he’d left it unlocked—a dumbass thing to do, even with his newfound perception skills. Swinging the door open anyways, Richie readies his mouth with his most charming smile. 

At first, the sunlight from outside rends Richie temporarily blinded. By the time he can make out the figure at the door, though, all of the words he’s ever known die on his tongue. Richie looks down, and then down a little more--straight into the face of Eddie Kaspbrak, his best friend, complete with big brown doe eyes and swear words spilling over his lips. 

“Goddamn it Richie, I spend seven hundred bucks on a flight, the least you can do is open the damn door in a reasonable amount of time—” 

And then Eddie is pushing past him into Richie’s apartment, and _holy shit, Eddie is in my shitty shoebox apartment._ First, Richie becomes acutely aware that the last time he showered was nearly a week ago. Then, the situation catches up with him and _HOLY SHIT, EDDIE HASN’T SEEN ME SINCE I’VE BEEN CURSED._ Richie about hits the floor. 

The beautifully sweet smell only gets stronger as Eddie brushes past him. That doesn’t help him stay on his feet, either. 

The next thing Richie notices is a tight pain in his chest, because, fuck, Eddie looks _great._ He’s wearing a dark long sleeve shirt with a big yellow stripe across the front and long, boring colored pants. Richie notices that his hair is longer and more fluffy than when he last saw it. With a start, he also realizes Eddie has turned nineteen since then. God, had Richie even wished him a happy birthday?

The brunette has a set of AirPods in his ears— _really, Eds?_ —a black backpack on his back, and a suitcase dragging behind him as he barges into Richie’s residence. Richie, on the other hand, is wearing only an oversized Led Zeppelin shirt and a pair of ratty boxers. He gulps and barely has the brainpower to shut the door. 

Eddie is still going off by the time Richie catches up to him.

 _“Seriously,_ you fucker—you’ve been worrying the shit out of all of us! You’ve barely sent two messages in the group chat in the last month, and when I text you to talk about our Christmas plans you don’t respond at all!” Richie freezes up. 

_Shit, our Christmas plans!_ Richie thinks.

It had been a moth before the last time they’d seen each other. They had been chilling in Eddie’s room, enjoying the freedom that had come with Sonia Kaspbrak being scared of her ‘Eddie Bear’ leaving her. Richie had been throwing a hackie sack around and trying (and also failing) to not think about the future. Eddie was on his soon-to-be college’s website, looking at the dorms to try and decide which one he wanted to live in. That fact was not helping Richie with his goal of avoiding an existential crisis.

“Quit moping.” Eddie had commented, not looking up from his desktop. Richie had frowned and thrown the hackie sack a little harder.

“I’m not moping,” he had pouted. At that, Eddie had sighed and closed out of his internet browser.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked, turning to face where Richie was laying on his floor. Richie had continued chewing his cheek for a millisecond before flashing Eddie a breezy smile.

“Oh, you should be a little more considerate of your best friend’s heartbreak, Eds. Leaving your mom is a burden that I don’t know if I can bear—“ Richie had tried.

“Shut up, asshole,” Eddie had said instead, firmly. Richie grit his teeth and caught the hackie sack, narrowly avoiding it hitting his face. The room fell into silence as Richie chewed on his tongue. 

This was the part where Eddie would usually snap at him, making room for Richie to make another joke and them to fall into their usual pattern of bantering and bickering. However, the longer the silence stretched on, the more serious Richie realized Eddie was.

“Fuck, I don’t know, isn’t it gonna suck not seeing each other?” Richie finally said, after what felt like five minutes of dead air. He kept his eyes focused on the hackie sack. 

“What do you—” Eddie had started to ask. Richie had interrupted him, though.

“I mean, we’re the losers! The seven musketeers! _Mí casa es su casa,_ and all that jazz. Isn’t it gonna suck to not have that?” Richie quickly tacked on, panicked by the solemn tone in Eddie’s voice. Eddie continued to stare at Richie like he was the dumbest person on the planet.

“Rich, we’re still gonna see each other. We’re gonna visit.” Eddie said. Richie bit on his tongue some more. He knew he couldn’t say what he was thinking—that even if Eddie visited once a month, it wouldn’t be enough for his stupid pining ass. 

“I promise I’ll visit you, Rich.” Eddie had muttered quietly. Richie’s eyes darted over at him in shock at the gentle tone of his voice. The hackie sack came down dangerously fast, and Richie almost fumbled the catch. 

When neither of the boys spoke, Eddie took a breath and continued, “We’ll all meet up, I promise. But if it’ll make you feel better, you and I can promise to see each other at least once a year. It can be for Christmas or some other bullshit, since we’ll get a long ass break then.” Richie swallowed nervously. Now they had _for sure_ gone too long without bantering; the intensity of the moment was too real. It was too close to being a discussion about feelings, and Richie felt his palms start to sweat. 

“But, _you better split the travel fifty-fifty, you cheap fuck.”_ Eddie had barked out with a grin. Richie felt the tension in his chest ease, just a little bit. He took that opportunity to lob his hackie sack straight at Eddie’s head.

“Motherfucker!” Eddie spit venomously, taking an eraser off his desk and chunking it at Richie in return. Richie’s laugh had burst out of him then—surprising and full of relief. The eraser bounced harmlessly off his chest and Richie couldn’t help but smile as he picked it up. 

_“Anything for you, Spaghetti.”_ Richie couldn’t stop himself from saying in a horrible voice, but then he hurled the eraser back at Eddie and the tension in the room was broken.

Back in the present day, Eddie is still raving on.

“I was about out of my mind when Stan finally convinced me to just come damn see you, response or not, and then—” Eddie continues to rant, until he slowly trails off. 

The tiny apartment Richie has been holed up in since “the incident” is a _mess._ There are alcohol bottles lining every surface—some empty, some not—everything from hard lemonade to scotch. There are plastic wrappers and empty amazon boxes everywhere too, and Richie is suddenly _very_ glad that the plasma fruit that sustains him comes unlabeled. He still has some in the fridge, which will be hard to hide, but he’ll figure that out later.

“I almost thought you’d… you’d..” Eddie’s eyes wander over Richie’s apartment, and Richie swears that if he still could, he’d be flushing up to his ears. 

“Richie—you’re underage!” Eddie blurts out, looking bewilderedly around the kitchen. Richie is then also relieved that he got all the blow out of the house when he got cursed and hasn’t touched it since. He’s not ready to have that conversation with Eddie, or any of the losers. In fact, he’s not ready for Eddie to _be here, in his house, staring at the wreck that his life has become with those chocolatey brown eyes._

Richie starts to retaliate with some sort of dumb banter to diffuse the situation, but then he remembers that he has fangs now, _fuck,_ and his hand snaps up towards his face to keep him from opening his mouth. The movement catches Eddie’s eyes and the brunette looks over at him, _really_ seeing him for the first time. Eddie’s brow furrows. 

“Jesus Christ, Rich, you’re pale. When’s the last time you ate?” Eddie asks, bringing the back of his hand up to feel Richie’s forehead, and Richie wants to go feral with Eddie’s exposed skin that close to him. Eddie’s hand makes contact and Richie almost leaps back to get him to pull away. 

“Shit, you’re fucking clammy too. Are you sick?” Eddie conspiratorially looks at the half-consumed bottles around them. “Richie, are you fucking _drunk?”_

Richie wants to snap out that, _firstly,_ Bev used to drink in front of them all the time, so Eddies should stop being such a fucking hypocrite, and _secondly,_ it’s 10 AM and Richie has standards, goddamn it. He’s worried about opening his mouth too wide, though, so he chooses to mutter _“not currently”_ behind his palm instead. Eddie scowls deeper. 

“God, Richard,” Eddie shakes his head, “if you thought we were gonna make it easy for you to just abandon us and become an alcoholic—if you thought for _one second_ that I wouldn’t march down here and beat your ass for _any_ of this--” Eddie fumes, his cheeks turned bright scarlet. Then, without another word, Eddie is scrounging around Richie’s kitchen like he damn owns the place. 

Richie hears Eddie muttering to himself as he trails the shorter brunette into the kitchen, something like _“I’m going to need more caffeine to handle this right now.”_ Eds finds the coffeemaker easily enough, only having to throw open three cabinets before he finds the grounds and starts the machine up. However, Richie’s reaction time is too delayed to stop Eddie from looking in the fridge for creamer.

There’s a long space of silence where, even though Richie _technically_ doesn’t have to breathe anymore, he swears he’s suffocating. Eddie’s hand pauses, halfway into the fridge. Richie knows Eddie won’t find any milk in there.

“Richie,” Eddie gets out, concern in his voice. Richie suddenly feels like he needs to sit down.

“I can explain,” Richie begins, his hand going out to Eddie—but this leaves his mouth uncovered and his fangs on display for all the world to see. Eddie’s eyes widen at the sight in front of him. 

_“Richie!”_ Eddie hisses, reacting—just like Richie feared—badly. His gorgeous eyes are overflowing with emotion—maybe fear? _God,_ Richie hopes it isn’t fear. 

_Make a ‘your mom’ joke!_ Richie’s brain screams at him. _Tell him Sonia and I are expecting a beautiful fucking_ vampire _baby boy any day now—_

“Richie, you let someone _bite you!?”_ Eddie questions, voice panicked. Dumbly, Richie notices that he didn’t shut his mouth enough to cover his fangs and does so. 

“I didn’t let someone _bite_ me,” Riche grits out, teeth gnashed. Eddie stares at Richie like he grew a third head all of a sudden. Richie can’t stand the disapproving tone to his best friend’s voice—it makes his chest feel like it’s ripping in half.

“You’re _cursed!!”_ Eds all but yells, high pitched and panicky, as if that’s all the evidence he needs. Richie closes his eyes shut for what feels like a second. When he opens them, he’s surprised to find that he’s walked to his living room and seated himself on his couch. Eds trails after him into the room, hands already waving around wildly as he jumps from point to point. He looks _incredulous_ —face now twice as red as it had been when he was ranting. 

Richie, whose brain is working on zero food and less sleep than he is used to, is suddenly very, _very_ done with this conversation. 

“He didn’t use a condom.” Richie says. Even to his own ears, his voice falls flat. Seeing his friend filled with emotion—not the play-fighting anger of their childhood, but _real, tense emotion_ —Richie feels his stomach sink into the soles of his feet. He lets his head fall into his hands as he rubs at his eyes. 

Eddie is staring at Richie so hard that Richie can feel it. He almost wants to snark about it. At least Richie got him to shut up. 

There’s a beat of silence. Then a good few more.

“You let a cursed person not use a condom with you.” Eddie says. Richie briefly wonders whether the shellshock in his tone is because Richie is cursed or because he just came out. 

“I didn’t say I _let_ him not use a condom. I'm not a dumbass, Eds.” Richie mutters. Lifting his head, Richie sees that there’s a hot but unopened beer on the coffee table in front of him. He contemplates shotgunning it. 

The silence continues. This time the tension is so thick, Richie can feel it pulsing in the air. The sweet scent has overwhelmed his senses now, smelling of soft perfume and toothpaste and clean laundry and childhood memories that Richie can’t bear to think of right now. 

“That’s rape, Richie.” Eddie says, matter of fact, analytical. Richie’s hands fall to his sides, clenching and unclenching. Eddie seems to notice and takes a steadying breath. Richie wallows in the silence that follows. 

“Are you still seeing him? Is he—” Eddie asks, and Richie barks out a sharp laugh. Eddie jumps in his skin at the sound. 

“I don’t even know his name.” Richie admits. Saying it out loud is painful enough that Richie bites onto his lip with one of his canines to draw his attention away from himself. When he finally manages to look over at Eddie, the brunette’s eyes are locked onto where the tooth protrudes from his mouth. Slowly, Richie puts it back behind his lip. 

The silence envelopes them again. It is quickly becomming Richie’s favorite thing to hate.

The coffee machine begins to beep. 

For a long second, Eddie has the look in his gaze that he gets when he’s counting in his head to try and calm himself down. Then, he closes his eyes and exhales. 

“I need to take a shower,” Eddie starts, “if that’s okay. I just had a long trip and I can feel that I have airport all over me.” Richie sits there dumbly for a few moments, then realizes Eddie still has his eyes closed. 

“Umm… yeah,” he says. When Eddie doesn’t move, Richie stands up. Eddie opens his eyes in the process, and their height difference makes Richie start to feel dizzy. Instead, he holds out his arm, gesturing Eddie towards the bathroom. Richie kind of worries that Eddie is going to bolt out the front door on the way, but the shorter boy heads down the hallway until they’re at the right room. 

“There should, uh, be clean towels under the sink.” Richie says. Eddie still isn’t looking at him. Richie feels like he has whiplash. His hands long to pick at his dry lips.

The bathroom is never a good place for him. He hates not being able to see himself in the mirror, and the room smells like shit to his vampire nose due to gross LA water. Briefly, he hopes that Eddie won’t be able to notice. This close to Eds, though, all Richie can smell is the distracting lilac and mint scent. _Either way, I don’t think anything can be more upsetting than the shock of me being cursed,_ Richie can’t help but think. That’s what he tells himself, at least. 

Richie also helps Eddie get his bags into his guest bedroom—aka an office space that Richie had thrown a futon into before things went to utter shit, anticipating Eds’s coming that December. Eddie grabs an armful of things from his suitcase and heads into the bathroom while Richie folds the futon out. 

The separation from both Eddie and the intoxicating smell gives Richie’s brain a break, and by the time he goes back to sit in his living room, he’s feeling a bit better about the situation. Only a bit, though. 

_Okay, so Eddie’s here,_ Richie thinks, pacing in the living room. _He knows I’m cursed (and also that I’m gay), but he didn’t run away screaming that I’m disgusting, so that’s a start._ Rich is a little concerned that Eddie had wanted to shower right after learning these things, but he _had_ said it was due to the airpot germs. _A very Eddie thing to think,_ Richie notes. _And he also was willing to shower in the same shower that I have used, presumably._ Richie continues musing things over until he hears his a vibrating sound coming from his room.

“Shit,” he mutters, turning to face the noise. Immediately he stubbs his toe, smashing it into the wooden leg of his coffee table. The pain radiates up his body as he hops into his room and to his bedside table. He pulls his phone out of the drawer right as it the call goes dead. 

“Fuck,” Richie mutters grumpily to himself. Looking at his lock screen, he sees he has two missed calls from Bev and about sixty unread notifications. The most recent one that isn’t a call is from twenty minutes ago. It’s from **Molly Ringwald** 👄👄👄 and reads:

> **Molly Ringwald** 👄👄👄 _‘Just wanted to see how Eddie got in! 👀’_

Richie curses her under his breath. 

> **Trashmouth Tozier** 👅👅👅 _‘its going gr8, thx for the warning btw’_

Not even Beverly knows about his curse. Eddie hadn’t been lying when he said Richie had been absent in the group chat. Honestly, he’d been absent from _life,_ preferring to sleep the entire time that the sun was up and mope around his apartment miserably throughout the night. However, Bev _is_ painstakingly aware of Richie’s homosexual crisis, and the way he’s been pining after Eddie since they were all nine.

Richie sighs at his screen, heading into the kitchen to grab himself a yummy plasma fruit breakfast and opting to ignore the rest of his notifications. It’s what he’s been doing for three goddamn months, and thus far it’s worked _swimmingly._

A new text buzzes into his phone on his way to his fridge.

> **Molly Ringwald** 👄👄👄 _‘Good to know you still type like a serial killer.’_

Immediately, another message pings in after it. 

> **Molly Ringwald** 👄👄👄 _‘Seriously, it’s good to know you’re alive. Love you. 🖤’_

Richie can’t help but smile softly at that.

A little over half an hour later, Eddie arrives out of the shower. He stands in the hallway in a new outfit—this time it’s a pink polo and cuffed jeans with converse. He’s blushing for some reason as he comes into the room, which puzzles Richie a bit. Then, the second he gets within ten feet of Richie, the sweet, intoxicating smell comes back with a vengeance. Richie’s now starting to realize that the scent is Edide’s blood, and that thought makes him want to vomit all over everything he’s ever owned.

Richie hasn’t interacted with many people since “the incident,” but none of them ever smelled this way. Yeah, _sure,_ they didn’t smell the same to Richie as they did when he had been human, but they didn’t smell… like Eddie does. Richie guesses it’s true what they say then, about people you’re attracted to smelling more enticing than those you aren’t. That fact is a painful kick-to-the-nuts of a reminder that Richie is fucked, and his mood is immediately killed.

No matter whether Eddie accepts his curse or not, he’s still straight. Richie is doomed forever to a life of smelling mouthwatering lavender without knowing what it feels like to kiss the skin above it.

Eddie comes to sit next to him on the couch. There’s only enough space between them that they don’t touch, but he’s still tantalizingly close. Richie fights the urge to fidget, unsure of what Eds has planned for him. 

For a second, it looks like Eddie is going to offer his hand to Richie, but either he thinks he better of it or it was just Richie’s hopeful thinking. 

“I don’t care that you’re gay, Rich,” Eddie mutters once he’s seated, voice soft and filled with something Richie doesn’t recognize. 

Richie struggles to not let his initial shock show on his eyes. Sure, Richie hadn’t expected Eddie to scream, necessarily, but Richie has been repressing his sexuality for all but a few months of his life. Even though Eddie’s voice still contains heat, this feels like getting off too easy. 

Eddie seems to notice his reaction anyways. This time, he commits to putting his hand on Richie’s knee. Richie’s dead heart goes _boom-boom._

“I don’t care that you’re cursed, either. It was just a little… surprising,” Eddie says. Richie can understand that sentiment. It was a shock to his own damn self too, one he hadn’t reacted well over. 

“How long?” Eddie asks. Richie swallows to try and get his voice to work.

“Three months, about,” he answers. Eddie nods, like that was what he had been expecting. 

“God Richie, we were all so worried about you when you dropped off the face of the earth. We—” Eddie takes a breath, refocusing. That’s Eddie for you, always a man with a plan. “Have you notified your school yet? I know you can still go to class without it, but if you missed any work then I’ve heard they’ll let it off easier, and it’ll be nice to have a guidance counselor to talk to,” Eddie starts, but pauses when he sees the look on his friend’s face.

“Richie,” he deadpans.

“About that,” Richie begins. Eddie’s eyes narrow. “I haven’t exactly… been back to school, since it happened.” 

“What the fuck! Richard!” Eddie exclaims, his brow furrowing before his eyebrows shoot into his hairline. Still, his voice is not as loud as Richie expects it to be. Richie huffs a little and crosses his arms anyways. He knows it was bad of him—but _sue him,_ he had been _processing!_

“That better have been a vine reference.” Richie snarks under his breath. Eddie does the thing where he counts to ten in his head again. 

“So you didn’t take _any_ of your finals?” Eddie asks. Richie bites his lip as his only response. Eddie’s eyes skim him over, talking him in, and he lets out a little sigh. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Eddie asks. Richie’s canine starts to worry at his lip again, and this time Eddie doesn’t hyper-focus on it. Richie tries not to let himself freak out over how soft Eddie’s voice is.

“I don’t think I’m ready to.” Richie admits, and his traitor voice breaks in the middle of it. _Fuck,_ he thinks. His eyes begin to prickle with the stupid crimson-gross-ass bloody tears that vampires make (he’d found that one out the hard way). Richie wills himself not cry. 

Eddie’s hand on his leg is like a grounding rock. It tightens slightly, the pressure soothing before Eddie lifts it. 

“Have you been to a doctor at all?” Eddie asks softly after Richie tries to get his breathing _(the breathing that he no longer needs to live)_ under control. Richie closes his eyes and shakes his head no. “That’s the first thing we’ll do, then.” 

Richie looks at Eddie sideways. Immediately, his breathing is back to clusterfucked. 

“We?” he asks, his voice husky. Eddie’s smile at him is small and sad. 

“Of course, you asshole,” the brunette says, and Richie suddenly feels like his skin is going to break out into hives.

“We? Eddie, you have your own life—”Richie begins to ramble, “you shouldn’t have to _baby_ me, I’m the idiot who got himself cursed.” Richie’s voice rises a little bit as his mind starts to race. “And now I’m a fucking _vampire,_ because dumbass me had to go and get dumbass sloppy-ass drunk and have sex with a fucking _freak who doesn’t listen to consent, and—”_

“Rich, _stop,”_ Eddie says firmly, and then he’s pulling Richie into a hug as the pomegranate seed tears start to fall from Richie’s eyes. This close, the smell of Eddie feels to him the same way honey tastes—thick and syrupy and warm, and Richie sure about fainting this time.

This is the first time Richie’s been touched by another being in three whole months, and the sudden sensation of it is almost overwhelming. Richie melts into Eddie’s hold like butter onto a hot skillet, clinging to his friend’s polo for dear life. 

Richie is overwhelmed—he feels like he can’t breathe. But then, Eddie is rubbing his hand over his back and Richie realizes the Eddie isn’t afraid of him like he thought they all would be. He starts bawling harder. 

“It’s okay, Rich, _god,_ you dickwad, you’re not alone. You know that right? You’re not alone—we love you. We would never leave you, especially not over something like this.” Eddie is rambling in his ear, still rubbing his back. Richie can’t tell if he’s been saying his thoughts out loud or if Eddie just knows him well enough at this point to guess what he’d be feeling. Either way, they sit on his couch for a long few minutes.

After he gets the worst of the sobbing out, Richie comes back to himself a little bit. He feels snot leak out of his nose and is appalled that he’s staining Eddie’s shirt. Leaning back, he’s surprised that Eddie would ever be okay with having vampire tear germs on him. When he looks into Eddie’s eyes, though, all he sees is earnest affection. Richie doesn’t know whether that makes him want to calm down or cry harder. 

“Rich, you should have told us. We could have helped.” Eddie says, quietly. Richie looks away, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

“You guys shouldn’t have to fuck up your lives, just because I fucked up mine.” Richie says, offering himself a dark chuckle.

“Rich, you didn’t ruin your life.” Eddie says seriously. That definitely squeezes a few more tears out of Richie’s ducts.

This is the first time Richie has had to face the situation head on, and it feels like shit. Richie hates talking about his feelings because of this—being vulnerable always makes him feel like a dumbass kid. Any time a moment gets too heavy for him to diffuse it with humor, he starts to panic. The one thing he prides himself on is being able to make jokes. When he doesn’t even have that to defend himself, it always sucks. Still, Eddie is next to him anyways, rubbing his back while covered in vampire snot. That has to be worth something.

“You know that this isn’t your fault, right?” Eddie asks after a minute. 

Richie closes his eyes. He wants to argue back—to say that _yes, it actually is my fault, I didn’t have to let him into my house or let him keep kissing me or get into my bed with him,_ but instead he tries to take a few steading breaths. When he opens his eyes again, the tears are falling slower. 

Richie shrugs. Eddie frowns, his eyebrows pulling down in a shadow. The arm on Richie’s back draws him in, and, before he knows it, Richie’s pulled in for another hug.

“Even if it was your fault, you’re going to get through this.” Eddie says. Richie nods, which seems to please Eddie enough. He pulls Richie back into a hug, and this time Richie notices that he can hear Eddie’s pulse where it pounds in his veins. 

_Okay, that’s gross,_ Richie thinks, even as the steady rhythm soothes his nerves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people, I hope you liked this first chapter! As I've said, I'm actually hoping to turn it into a longer work and I have a lot of ideas for it, so please please leave a comment or a kudos if you liked it! The more of those I get, the more likely I'll be to continue this. Also, please let me know if you have any headcanons or any ideas for this series! You never know what could ignite a spark in my creativity, haha.


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